To stay afloat during the Great Depression, Gibson started manufacturing affordable entry-level guitars like this Recording King.
You get good at letting go when you work in a guitar store. Special guitars come through the doors every day at Fanny’s House of Music. Customers come in and bond with them just as much as we have. And sometimes, old guitars find new homes. New strings touch old frets, new picks fall into old soundholes, and new songs float on old air. Knowing the joy these instruments bring in their next life makes it a little easier to let go.
At the beginning of the Great Depression, the Gibson Guitar Corp. was on the brink of letting go of everything. With so many folks out of work, no one was buying guitars. It was during this period that A.W. Grover—president and treasurer of the company that later became Grover Musical Products—wrote a letter to Martin Guitars recounting a recent trip to Kalamazoo, noting that Gibson general manager Guy Hart “had a nervous breakdown and left for Arizona for a rest.”
Perhaps in a rest-induced burst of inspiration—or desperation—Hart decided Gibson needed to make something less expensive. As described in John Thomas’ excellent book Kalamazoo Gals, “The wood that would have been crafted into guitars, had the public been able to afford them, instead morphed into the Kroydon Rocket motorboat [and] the Running Rabbit pull toy." (During World War II, Hart would famously lament that the “plant is now being run almost entirely by women,” although that is a story for another time!)
Despite its clandestine manufacturing, the M-5, which was the top model in the Recording King line, looked awfully similar to Gibson’s L-5.
Photo by Madison Thorn
In addition to toys, Hart knew Gibson would need to make some budget-priced instruments in order to survive. With less fancy trim and no adjustable truss rods, they could market instruments at a lower price point. To retain the brand identity of Gibson in more upscale markets, these instruments got new names on the headstock. One of these names, Recording King, was just barely concealed by dealer Montgomery Ward, who said in catalogs, “The world’s largest and finest manufacturer of fretted instruments makes Recording Kings … made identical in quality and performance with instruments selling for $100.”
“Knowing the joy these instruments bring in their next life makes it a little easier to let go.”
This Recording King M-5 archtop guitar bears an awful lot of resemblance to Gibson’s L-5 with its 16" body, carved spruce top, and curly maple back and sides. In the late 1930s, the M-5 was the top of the line for Recording King, selling for $39.95 or $4 down and $3 a month. Ours is showing its age, with the celluloid pickguard degrading and off-gassing, but you wouldn’t believe how good this guitar plays. With no truss rod, the necks of these guitars were extra chunky, and this one is straight as an arrow. We were able to lower the action to a remarkable 1/16" on the bass side with no fret buzz. It practically plays itself.
Fanny’s acquired this outstanding instrument from a prominent guitarist in nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee. As he moves on to the next phase of his storied playing career, he is letting go of a few instruments from his collection. His guitars are most certainly not “closet queens”; they were played often and well-loved. We carefully scraped years of gunk from the fretboard, and the frets and inlays now shine like the day they left Kalamazoo. A little cleaning on the tuners and adjustable bridge and everything was turning freely and holding tight. Good as new!
Gibson removed their name from the headstocks of their Depression-era budget guitars to retain their upscale image.
Photo by Madison Thorn
Montgomery Ward abruptly stopped selling Gibson-made instruments in 1941. The 1940 Spring-Summer catalog had seven Gibson-made instruments and the 1941-1942 Fall-Winter catalog had none. It’s not clear why this happened, although it’s possible Gibson’s wartime production of radar boards and airplane runners took precedence over inexpensive guitars. We may never know for sure.
What courage it must have taken for our friend in Chattanooga to let this one go. It’s not always easy when a beautiful old instrument is full of rich history. Hidden in the cracks in the pickguard and under the gunk on the fretboard was the story of pre-war Gibson and the Great Depression, and, as usual, we count ourselves lucky to have been able to hear the story this guitar told. Who knows where it is headed next? We can’t wait to let it go.
- Vintage Vault: 1968 Gibson Melody Maker Bass ›
- Vintage Vault: 1964 Gibson Thunderbird Bass ›
- When Gibson Met Hagstrom ›
Maxon OD-9 Overdrive Pedal
The Maxon OD-9 Overdrive Effects Pedal may look like your old favorite but that's where the similarity ends. Improved circuitry with a new chip yields the ultra-smooth dynamic overdrive guitarists crave. Drive and Level controls tweak the intensity and volume while the Hi-Boost/Hi-Cut tone controls adjust brightness. Features true bypass switching, a die-cast zinc case, and 3-year warranty. From subtle cries to shattering screams, the Maxon OD-9 delivers a huge range of tones.
Features
Improved circuitry with a new chip yields ultra-smooth dynamic overdrive
Drive and Level controls tweak the intensity and volume
Hi Boost/Hi Cut tone controls adjust brightness
True bypass switching
Die-cast zinc case
AC/DC operation (order optional Maxon AC210N adapter)
Product Specs
Input: 1/4" mono jack
Output: 1/4" mono jack
Power: 9V DC, 6 mA, center pin minus (not included)
Dimensions: (WxDxH) 74 mm x 124 mm x 54 mm
Weight: 580g
Fender’s Greasebucket system is part of Cory Wong’s sonic strategy.
Tone pot with Fender Greasebucket tone system:
This 250k tone pot is a standard CTS pot with a 90/10 audio taper found in all U.S.-built Fender guitars. The Cory Wong guitar uses the Fender Greasebucket system, which is added to the pot as a ready-to-solder PCB. The Greasebucket PCB is also available individually from Fender (part #7713546000), though you can use conventional electronic parts for this.
Fender introduced this feature in 2005 on some of the Highway One models and some assorted Custom Shop Strats. The Greasebucket name (which is a registered Fender trademark, by the way) is my favorite of Fender’s marketing names, but don’t let it fool you: Your tone will get cleaner with this modification, not greasy and dirty.
According to Fender, the Greasebucket tone circuit reduces high frequencies without adding bass as the tone knob is turned down. Don’t let that description confuse you. A standard Strat tone control does not add any bass frequencies! As you already know, with a passive system you can’t add anything that isn’t already there. You can reshape the tone by deemphasizing certain frequencies and making others more prominent. Removing highs makes lows more apparent and vice versa. In addition, the use of inductors (which is how a passive pickup behaves in a guitar circuit) and capacitors can create resonant peaks and valleys (band-passes and notches), further coloring the overall tone.
Cory Wong bringing the funk onstage.
This type of band-pass filter only allows certain frequencies to pass through, while others are blocked. The standard tone circuit in a Strat is called a variable low-pass filter (or a treble-cut filter), which only allows the low frequencies to pass through while the high frequencies get sent to ground via the tone cap.
The Greasebucket’s band-pass filter is a combination of a high-pass and a low-pass filter. This is supposed to cut high frequencies without “adding” bass, which has mostly to do with the resistor in series with the pot. That resistor means the control will never get to zero. You can get a similar effect by simply not turning the Strat’s standard tone control all the way down. (The additional cap on the wiper of the Greasebucket circuit complicates things a bit, though; together with the pickups it forms an RLC circuit, but I really don’t want to get into that here.)
The standard Fender Greasebucket tone system is used in the Cory Wong Strat, which includes a 0.1 μF cap and a 0.022 uF cap, along with a 4.7k-ohm resistor in series. These are the values used on the PCB, and without the PCB it looks like the illustration at the top of this column.
Push-push tone pot with preset overwriting function:
The lower tone pot assigned to the bridge pickup is a 250k audio push-push pot with a DPDT switch. The switch is used to engage a preset sound by overwriting the 5-way pickup-selector switch, no matter what switching position it is in. The preset functionality has a very long tradition in the house of Fender, dating back to the early ’50s, when Leo Fender designed a preset bass sound on position 3 (where the typical neck position is on a modern guitar) of the Broadcaster (and later the Telecaster) circuit. Wong loves the middle-and-neck-in-parallel pickup combination, so that’s the preset sound his push-push tone pot is wired for.
The neck pickup has a dedicated tone control while the middle pickup doesn’t, which is also another interesting feature. This means that when you hit the push-push switch, you will engage the neck and middle pickup together in parallel, no matter what you have dialed in on the 5-way switch. Hit the push-push switch again, and the 5-way switch is back to its normal functionality. Instead of a push-push pot, you can naturally use a push-pull pot or a DPDT toggle switch in combination with a normal 250k audio pot.
Here we go for the wiring. For a much clearer visualization, I used the international symbol for ground wherever possible instead of drawing another black wire, because we already have a ton of crossing wires in this drawing. I also simplified the treble-bleed circuit to keep things clearer; you’ll find the architecture of it with the correct values in the previous column.
Cory Wong Strat wiring
Courtesy of singlecoil.com
Wow, this really is a personalized signature guitar down to the bone, and Wong used his opportunity to create a unique instrument. Often, signature instruments deliver custom colors or very small aesthetic or functional details, so the Cory Wong Stratocaster really stands out.
That’s it! In our next column, we will continue our Stratocaster journey in the 70th year of this guitar by having a look at the famous Rory Gallagher Stratocaster, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!
Key Features of the ZOMA
● Intuitive Control Layout: Three large knobs give you full control over Reverb Level, Tremolo Rate,and Depth
● Easy Access to Alternate Controls: Adjust Reverb Decay, Reverb Tone, and Tremolo Volume withsimple alt-controls.
● Instant Effect Order Switching: Customize your signal path. Position tremolos after reverb for avintage, black-panel tone or place harmonic tremolo before reverb for a dirty, swampy sound.
● True Bypass or Buffered Trails: Choose the setting that best suits your rig.
Three Reverb and Tremolo Modes:
● SS – Spring Reverb & Sine Tremolo: Classic spring reverb paired with a sine wave tremolo for that timelessblack-panel amp tone.
● PH – Plate Reverb & Harmonic Tremolo: Smooth, bright plate reverb combined with swampy harmonictremolo.
● PV – Plate Reverb & Pitch Vibrato: Achieve a vocal-like vibrato with ethereal plate reverb.
Reverb: Sounds & Controls
● Spring Reverb: Authentic tube amp spring reverb that captures every detail of vintage sound.
● Plate Reverb: Bright and smooth, recreating the lush tones of vibrating metal plates.
● Reverb Decay: Adjust the decay time using the REVERB/ALT SWITCH while turning the Level knob.
● Reverb Tone: Modify the tone of your reverb using the REVERB/ALT SWITCH while turning the Rate knob.
Tremolo: Sounds & Controls
● Sine Wave/Volume Tremolo: Adjusts the volume of the signal up and down with smooth sine wavemodulation.
● Harmonic Tremolo: Replicates classic tube-amp harmonic tremolo, creating a phaser-like effect withphase-split filtering.
● Pitch Vibrato: Delivers pitch bending effects that let you control how far and how fast notes shift.
● Alt-Control Tremolo Boost Volume: Adjust the boost volume by holding the REVERB/ALT footswitch whileturning the Depth knob.
The ZOMA is built with artfully designed circuitry and housed in a proprietary angled aluminum enclosure, ensuring both simplicity and durability. Like all Keeley pedals, it’s proudly designed and manufactured in the USA.
ZOMA Stereo Reverb and Tremolo
The first sound effects built into amplifiers were tremolo and reverb. Keeley’s legendary reverbs are paired with their sultry, vocal-like tremolos to give you an unreal sonic experience.